Abstract

Social influence is the process in which an agent is under pressure to form her opinion on an issue based on the opinions expresses by her peers. An obvious reaction to social influence is to change ones opinions to conform to the pressure. The study of formal models of social influence has been drawing attention in the literature. A comparatively under-explored aspect of social influence is its role as an instrument of social network change. Agents with an eclectic milieu of peers might find themselves under conflicting social pressures. In this case to conform to social influence by changing one’s beliefs is no longer an option and the agent may seek to distance herself from some of her peers to relieve the pressure. We build a formal model of social influence that allows us to study social influence as a source of conflict and an instrument of network change. Within our framework different models of social influence can be defined but also compared to each other.